History of Sega in South Korea
From Sega Retro
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History of Sega in South Korea |
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Official Sega distributor(s): HiCom (1988-1999), Korea OACS (1988-1993?), Samsung (1988-1997), Kama Entertainment (1997-1998), Korea Data Systems (1997-1998), Hyundai-Sega Entertainment (1996-2001), Sega Korea (2003-2008), Sega Publishing Korea (2008-present) |
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South Korea has and continues to see a number of Sega products imported into the country, in addition to producing its own hardware and software for Sega systems.
Contents
Arcade era/MSX compatibles
Section under construction
Sega Mark III

From November 1988, Korea Oacs and HiCom with help from Samsung was selling Sega Mark III and planed to produce 50,000 units in 1989[1], but plan was cut shortly in April 1989.
Samsung
Gam*Boy
Most of Sega's home consoles were distributed in South Korea by Samsung. The names were changed because the Japanese products were illegal in this region. In April 1989, Samsung began selling Sega Master System as Gam * Boy[2]. The console was supported by Korea Oacs and HiCom, which released software. Despite the failure in rest of Asia, was pretty popular in South Korea selling 720,000 units until 1993 and last model was released in 1995. From May 1990, Samsung began promoting Mega Drive as Super Gam*Boy. The system had good sells, having 200,000 holders until 1993. Game Gear released in January 1991 as Handy Gam * Boy doesn't had that much of luck due to price and was beaten by stronger competition.
Aladdin Boy
In late 1992, Samsung decided to change the names of the consoles to Aladdin Boy (Master System), Super Aladdin Boy (Mega Drive) and Handy Aladdin Boy (Game Gear). CD Aladdin Boy (Mega CD) sold from March 1993 and Super 32X (Sega 32X) from January 1995, weren't received good by the public.
In 1994, Sega Digital Communications announced the launch of Sega Channel within a year, however, it is not known today whether this happened.
Samsung began marketing the Sega Pico as Pico from March 1995 and Sega Saturn as Samsung Saturn from November 1995. The 32-bit console had the most expensive launch price in South Korean history reaching W550,000 and selling only 2,000 units in the first month. Saturn was incompatible with Japanese version and limited number of games in Korea resulted that most of the people decided to buy cheaper Japanese consoles and some of the retailers began selling regional converters[3]. As an answer, on Summer 1996 Samsung released cheaper model with bundled converter. Unlike its predecessors, third-party companies like Wooyoung System translated a few games into Korean, starting from 1996[4]. In February 1997, after poor Saturn sales, Samsung exited the gaming business. Due to popularity of Pico in the country, Samsung kept a rights to the distribution in South Korea, releasing even a new model in 1998. They eventually ended production in December 2002.
Sega Saturn and Mega Drive 2
On December 2 1994, when its rival Goldstar (now LG Electronics) ambitiously released the 3DO Alive in Korea through a technical partnership with the American company 3DO, the "32-bit video game console war" began to be discussed in the domestic media. Of course, Samsung also took action early to release the Sega Saturn in Korea (there is a magazine article that Samsung exhibited the Saturn in the multimedia section at the Korea Electronics Show in October 1994, before the Sega Saturn was released in Japan).
It was released under the product name Samsung Saturn in November 1995, a year after than the Japanese launch.
Launch games included Daytona USA, Panzer Dragoon, Virtua Fighter Remix and Worldwide Soccer: Sega International Victory Goal Edition.
Samsung Saturn sales were difficult from the beginning. The console's price was much higher than that of Japanese parallel imports, and since it was region-locked, it had low compatibility with Japanese Sega Saturn software that was already actively distributed through parallel imports, so users avoided it (afterwards, a cartridge called "Mega Converter" that bypassed the region-lockout was included). Since the software was mainly Sega-produced games translated into English, the lineup was clearly limited. Starting in 1996, the center of the Japanese market shifted to PlayStation, which also rapidly weakened Sega Saturn's position in the domestic parallel import market. Given this situation, Samsung had to fight fiercely against parallel imports by drastically lowering its regular price by more than 100,000 won in early 1996 and then lowering it by another 60,000 won in June, despite the high production cost.
With the high prices and deterioration of profit margins due to excessively high production costs, and the poor software lineup due to the lack of a localization system, Samsung stopped releasing software at the end of 1996, virtually withdrawing from the home game console business and reorganizing the business division to focus on PC game distribution. It was not only Samsung, but also LG Electronics and Hyundai Electronics that successively withdrew from the home game console distribution business, which was experiencing deteriorating profitability and were criticized by the media and users around this time. According to game magazine articles from 1996, Samsung Electronics was pushing for the localization of several Sega Saturn games in Korean behind the scenes, but it seems that they decided to withdraw from the market and scrapped all plans.
By February 1997, Samsung completely withdrew from the home game console business due to the failure of the Samsung Saturn. Official after-sales support was still available even after it's discontinuation. Later when Samsung ended its official after-sales support, it is said that they carried out a large-scale paid recall of Samsung Saturn consoles that were still under warranty. Perhaps due to this, the number of Samsung Saturns currently remaining is diminished.
After Samsung ended its home game console business in early 1997, the restrictions on the sale of Japanese products were relaxed due to the revision of the import diversification policy. It appears that several companies negotiated with Sega to officially distribute the Sega Saturn console, among them were Kama Entertainment (카마 엔터테인먼트) and Korea Data Systems (코리아데이타시스템스)[5][6]. Ultimately, Kama Entertainment became the official sales agent.
From the same time, HiCom began distributing the Mega Drive 2 in South Korea, under its original name. Like Saturn, some of the Mega Drive games were released for the second time.
On May 29 1997, a meeting was held with Wooyoung System to seek a cooperative relationship, and an agreement was reached where Kama Entertainment would be in charge of hardware distribution for the Korean version of the Sega Saturn, and Wooyoung System would share the responsibility of software distribution and Korean localization. Wooyoung System contacted Sega and signed a third-party contract to distribute Sega Saturn software from mid-1997. In addition, they did not stop at simple distribution but succeeded in releasing Korean-translated versions of three games, starting with Myst in April 1996. Meanwhile, Kama Entertainment, which had been regularly importing and selling PlayStation hardware and software since mid-1997, also began selling Sega Saturn software domestically. They re-released Virtua Cop 2 and Virtual On, which had been released by Samsung in the past.
Afterwards, on September 13 1997, the Korean version of the black-colored Sega Saturn was officially released through Kama Entertainment. The actual sales period is known to have been very brief, making this model relatively rare.
However, the Sega Saturn's position in Korea was still not easy, and the problems of illegal copying and parallel imports continued to rise.
In addition, Sega hurriedly announced plans to release the next-generation console (Dreamcast), so localizing the Saturn software became meaningless.
The aftereffects of the Asian Financial Crisis eventually spread to the domestic economy, dealing a direct blow to the domestic video game market.
Wooyoung System ceased business in May 1998, and Kama Entertainment also stopped distributing the Sega Saturn and focused on PC games, so the official expansion of the Sega Saturn in Korea came to an end after a little over two years.
Hyundai
In 1996 Sega formed a partnership with Hyundai, creating Hyundai-Sega Entertainment to bring arcade games and components to the country. The move was expected to produce $25 million USD in revenue for the two companies[7].
Soon, Hyundai decided to release Sega games on PC. In 1998, the company announced that it will become the distributor of the new Sega Dreamcast console. In late 1999, it was promised that the console would be available in early 2000 with price of W200,000, region free and bundled with modem cable but the system was still not released. In May 2000, it was decided that the consoles will be imported in unchanged Japanese version. The 25,000 units were sent to Korea before Hyundai cancelled the project in September 2000. Most of the consoles that were used in South Korea was imported from Japan by the users or stores[8]. Sega.com Asia planned to launch localized internet service for Dreamcast until early 2001, but it's fate is unknown[9]. After that, Samsung decided to import Dreamcast as arcade machine, which was just a remodeled version of NAOMI system.
Piracy
As in other Asian countries, piracy also existed in South Korea and one example are famiclones. As for Sega, games for the Master System have been pirated since the early 1990s. During Samsung's distribution, the Mega Drive bootlegs weren't as that common. Everything changed in the late 1990s and early 2000s when many clones were released including Car Game, GamBrothers by First Game, Megagame by Phillko, Dream X by Mega Game, Neo-16, Sponge by Techline, Noritul FX-16 and Super Drive by Unitech and TV Pump by Mega Game (which also created rare Korean bootleg for MD called Pump It Up).
Xity Enterprise
From 2003, Xity Enterprise began to market Kids Communication Pico in Korea as Neo Pico.
Present days
The companies that distributed Sega PC titles in late 1990s and early 2000s are SKC and Wizard Soft[10]. Sonokong released some of the titles in mid-2000s. In 2013, Shanda Games released Chain Chronicles[11].
Since 2003, Sega Korea replaced in 2008 by Sega Publishing Korea is the representative of Sega.
In 2010s, Sega created Sega Asia which handle regional releases of games,[12] but not physical distribution.
External links
- A History of Korean Gaming article by Sam Derboo at Hardcore Gaming 101
References
- ↑ https://archive.ph/rIyg5
- ↑ http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/korea/part1/korea1.htm#fn59b
- ↑ http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/korea/part2/korea2.htm
- ↑ File:GameChamp_KR_1996-10.pdf, page 29
- ↑ File:GameChamp_KR_1997-10.pdf, page 11
- ↑ File:GameChamp_KR_1997-11.pdf, page 2
- ↑ Ultra Game Players, "March 1997" (US; 1997-02-25), page 16
- ↑ http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/korea/part2/korea2.htm
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20010208231942/http://www.sega.com.hk/b5/aboutsega/press3.htm
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20010407222202/http://wzsoft.com:80/english/pd.html
- ↑ https://www.techinasia.com/sega-hopes-to-take-chain-chronicles-across-asia-via-an-unexpected-partner
- ↑ https://www.siliconera.com/sega-established-singapore-branch-to-cover-southeast-asia/